


A Regular Rip van Winkle

by aurilly



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, Crowley's Century-Long Nap (Good Omens), Dancing, Discreet Gentlemen's Clubs, Fish out of Water, French Revolution, Louis XIV - Freeform, M/M, Pining, Victorian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-04-06 06:59:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19057597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/pseuds/aurilly
Summary: After almost an entire century spent asleep, Crowley wakes in 1888 to find the world more changed than he thought possible. His first order of business is to find his angel.Also concerning the origin of the Baroque gavotte (spoilers: Aziraphale was feeling thirsty).





	A Regular Rip van Winkle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jougetsu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jougetsu/gifts).



> So many things happened in 1888! I was hoping to work in The Great Sheep Panic, but alas. Next time!
> 
> Also, the footnotes link back and forth! :D

Evil in general does not sleep, but Crowley lay buried under a mountain of blankets that, in his sleep, he had shrugged off and pulled back according to the changing seasons. Unlike humans, who often look angelic in slumber, this former angel had never appeared more human than he did right now. [ **1**] His limbs sprawled at unlikely angles, his face scrunched into a flat, blandly pleased expression, and his hair poked in all directions.

That was before The Noise. 

By the time Crowley had woken up enough to identify the noise as knocking, his expression had transformed into a typically demonic scowl.

"What in hell's name…" he grumbled, pulling the sheets completely over his face. 

The fact that the knocker had found this door was impressive, since the room in question lay off a secret passageway in a little-used wing of an abandoned palace. The architect, Hadouin-Mansart, had originally intended this section of Versailles to accommodate lower level diplomats—younger sons of minor German city-states and suchlike—but very few fitting that particular social status had ever come to stay at Versailles. They'd preferred, as Crowley always had, the lights of Paris. Therefore, the entire area had spent years covered in white sheeting until someone locked it up entirely. The secret passageway was forgotten entirely; indeed, it had been so overlooked to begin with that someone had accidentally built over its entrance. And ever since the forcible removal of its primary residents, no one had lived at Versailles at all. 

All of which made this a wonderful room to sleep uninterrupted for as long as one liked. 

But someone had found the barricaded door. Someone with no respect for the laws of physics.

Hastur oozed through a crack between door hinges and rematerialized to stand over Crowley's bed. 

"I've been looking everywhere for you. Had to solicit our Lord himself to locate you. And you know how little he likes to be bothered with these kinds of details." Hastur poked at Crowley's head with a slimy finger. "Are you awake?"

Crowley's nightcap had slid down his face, obscuring his vision. He pushed it up and sighed, admiring the pretty ceiling before turning to look at Hastur. "I am now."

"What are you sleeping for?" Hastur asked curiously. 

"All that tempting really takes it out of you," Crowley replied, thinking it was the right answer. It would have to do until his brain started working again; it currently felt as covered in cobwebs as everything else in the room.

"No it doesn't. I've been tempting for millennia and have never needed a rest." Hastur glared at him suspiciously. "For how long have you been asleep?"

"Since…" Crowley found that he couldn't answer, but knew better than to admit he'd been sitting down on the job for long, just in case it _had_ been a long while. "Not long. Just resting my eyes, really." 

"Why here? Seems a long way to go for a nap."

"A long way?"

"Yes, from London. You were there only the other day, weren't you?"

"Ah, yes," Crowley replied. As far as he knew, he hadn't been in London in years. He simply wasn't certain yet exactly how many years. He wondered what Hastur knew that he didn't. "I wanted a break from London. Try to make some headway on new ground. Change of scenery and all that."

"Well, I'm here to tell you not to bother. You're to head back. Immediately."

"Really? Why?"

"Everyone is very pleased with the work you've been doing in London. The business in Whitechapel. Capital job, they say. Another commendation on the way. No one has seen a soul so thoroughly damned since the worst of the Inquisitor cardinals. They want to see you expand on what you've started. Not rest on your laurels."

"The business in Whitechapel…" Crowley repeated, uncomprehending, but trying not to sound it. He rubbed a little sleep out of his eye and played along. "Ah, yes, of course. Very complicated work that was. One of my most detailed projects. But I'll see what I can do."

"Yes. Good." Hastur rose from the bed and shook the dust he'd picked up off the back of his pants. "Well, I'm off."

"Where to?"

"America. Souls are ripe for the picking in New York these days. Huge population, lots of money, lots of crime."

The last time Crowley had been on that side of the ocean was in 1773. The vast waste of very high quality oolong had brought Aziraphale closer to true righteous anger than Crowley had ever seen him. He'd heard the angel muttering to himself about know what he'd do with that flaming sword if he'd still had it. Aziraphale had been so upset, so enraged with the whole business that he'd decamped back to England ("where people aren't _savages_ ," he'd grumbled throughout the return voyage) shortly afterwards. The cities in the now-former colonies had all been mere villages, practically campsites, compared to London. Hardly the kind of teeming population centres that Hastur liked to frequent. 

Something must have changed.

"What's it like, by the way?" Hastur asked before leaving. 

"What's what like?"

"Sleeping." 

Crowley wanted to say 'divine' but thought better of the word choice just in time. So, instead he replied, "Sinfully indulgent. You should try it sometime."

Hastur shook his head. "No thank you. I don't like the idea of being unable to look behind my shoulder."

"Reasonable," Crowley said.

Hastur disintegrated and oozed back through the cracks in the door.

Finally alone again, Crowley took stock of the room. Many more inches of dust had fallen since he'd entered (and there had been decades' worth then). He shook it off the clothes he'd thrown on the floor and got dressed. He folded the blankets and rearranged the furniture. A quick wave disappeared all the dust and restored the sheen to the elaborate scroll moldings on the wall, whose paint he also restored. 

Demons are said to love squalor, but that is mainly true of demons that spend all of their time in Hell, where nothing is quite tangible, and therefore nothing is ever really dirty. But material objects require care, and Crowley had come to enjoy taking care of things. He'd picked up the habit from the angel. 

Once he'd satisfied himself that the room would meet even Aziraphale's exacting standards, if, by chance, the angel were the next one of them to need the space, he let himself out. A minor miracle made the doors lock again from the inside.

* * *

Over the centuries, Crowley and Aziraphale had nurtured the Arrangement to include various cozy features, such as private spaces in which they could relax, hide trinkets, and drink without having to share the wine with outsiders. Aziraphale had found and christened the first of these retreats: a charming cottage in Scotland in which he spent a week or two each summer. Crowley accompanied him most years, when Aziraphale didn't schedule it during boating weeks.

Crowley had discovered this particular secret wing of Versailles in 1686, at the height of the Sun King's reign. A duchess he'd been assigned to tempt—she'd done most of the work herself, honestly—had led him here for a tryst. She had learned of the rooms from her lady in waiting, who in turn had learned of it from her lover, who was the son of one of the construction workers. Crowley had spent most of the, ahem, _sinning_ flat on his back, staring at the lovely ebony and ivory inlaid ceiling while she did her business over him. He found the pattern so pleasantly mesmerizing, the understatedly loveliest ceiling in this over-designed social prison, that he wanted to share it with someone. Someone other than the duchess. The someone with whom he usually shared things. 

He was so distracted in admiration of the ceiling that he forgot to make much of an effort, and had left the duchess sorely disappointed. 

A few days later, Crowley was dancing, very sweatily and very badly, at a ball (The Hall of Mirrors, while pretty, rose to temperatures that rivaled the vestibule of Hell) when he spotted Aziraphale for the first time in weeks. Sitting at a table with the king's brother, Aziraphale was watching Crowley and the other dancers with wide, focused, slightly crazed eyes.

Aziraphale had been looking at him like that a lot recently. Crowley couldn't quite make out why. Perhaps the stress of the job was getting to him. That, or his superiors' awful attitudes. Honestly, one of the benefits of having fallen was that Crowley no longer had to put up with that smug lot. He did not envy Aziraphale one bit.

Monsieur and his wild companions pulled on Aziraphale's sleeves and snapped their fingers in front of his face to bring him out of the reverie into which he had fallen. Crowley could tell that they were inveigling him to dance, but he knew, in a way they did not, that the thing was hopeless. Angels did not dance; never had. Crowley, even though he had once been an angel, couldn't have told you whether it was due to embarrassment, lack of rhythm, cold-bloodedness, or rank stuck-uppedness. Either way, no one had ever taught one how to dance, and none of them had ever evinced interest in learning.

But right now, Aziraphale's comforting features were stamped with what looked like yearning, a desire to join in on the fun, held back by… well, by all of the above reasons for why angels didn't dance. Crowley knew better than to tempt him—it would never work—so he gave Aziraphale a little wave and turned back to his partner. 

The next time Aziraphale came into Crowley's view, he was whispering something intricate into Monsieur's ear. Or, at least, Crowley guessed it was intimate by how long the message took to communicate. Monsieur nodded, smiled, and leaped to his feet, spilling champagne as he moved. He ran to the orchestra and silenced their bows with a wave (in some ways, royalty shared the same powers as demons). The party-goers all turned to him in surprise. 

"Do not worry. This is to be the briefest and most felicitous of interruptions," Monsieur exclaimed. With a gesture at Aziraphale, he continued, "My beloved friend has suggested a delightful addition to this dance. After the _pied largi_ , you will kiss your partner, perform the turn, and then also kiss the new partner you change. It should all time beautifully." 

The ladies giggled excitedly, and the men laughed, but everyone seemed amenable to trying it. 

"What if you are at the end of the line, brother?" King Louis asked, in uncommon good humour that evening. "Those at the end turn to find no new partners."

"Then you must kiss one of the wallflowers. Whoever is nearest will do. Man or woman, it matters little."

That got another hoot of laughter from the entire room. The orchestra began again, and the dancers resumed their paces, this time with the requisite kissing. It took a few rounds (and only a little more alcohol) for everyone to overcome their awkwardness. Soon the entire party had eagerly taken to the revised dance. Couples that had spent months dancing around each other, both literally and figuratively, now exchanged innocent, whisper-light kisses. Close friends previously too afraid to express affection allowed themselves to revel in their fraternal love. 

The entire mood in the room changed from one of guilty licentiousness and devious politicking into one of happiness and innocent joy. It wouldn't last—these kinds of miracles tended to be ephemeral—but to have wrought such a change, even temporarily, in such a deeply duplicitous place as this court, took some doing. 

Crowley frowned, knowing he'd been thwarted. He frowned also because he was still dancing under five layers of lace and wool. He sought out Aziraphale's gaze to congratulate him (even demons can appreciate a job well done), and found him, not at the table at which he'd been sitting, but leaning, very close by, against the wall near the end of the line of dancers.

Crowley counted how many rounds until he would reach the end. Four partners later, he spun himself off from the dance and grabbed Aziraphale in his arms.

"My dear Crowley," the angel choked, flushing deep red.

"Let's take a break," Crowley said, disguising his whisper as a kiss to Aziraphale's ear.

"All right!" the angel said. He waved away his friends, who heckled him when they saw him going off with the dangerously mysterious Count Crowley, towards whom Aziraphale had always (badly) feigned a dramatic flavor of interested dislike. "Where are we going?" 

"Other side of the palace. I've been wanting to show you for days, but they told me you were at Fontainebleau with Monsieur. Nice work, by the way, adding kissing to the dance. Spreading love and light everywhere you go, eh?"

"That was rather the point," Aziraphale replied softly, inscrutably, and if Crowley hadn't known better, hadn't known that angels don't lie, he might have thought that wasn't the point at all. 

"What could possibly be down this frightfully dark and dirty corridor?" Aziraphale asked a few minutes later, alternating between holding the guiding hand that Crowley had offered, and snatching it away in order to protect his silk coat from cobwebs.

"You'll see."

When they arrived, Aziraphale's reaction proved to be everything Crowley had hoped for. He gasped, and clutched at Crowley's arm. 

"This is beautiful. How ever did you find your way here?" Aziraphale looked at Crowley with shining eyes, and then, upon reading the answer in his expression, frowned. "Ah. I see. I suppose a 'nice work' is in order for you, too."

Crowley shrugged. He had never felt ashamed for doing his job, had never regretted a temptation, but something about Aziraphale's face right now made him wish he'd failed in his duty, just this once. He didn't know why, and something within him shirked from examining the reason too closely.

"I was thinking," he said. "Why don't we make it our own? No one knows it's here. It would take only a minor miracle to bar the door to humans. Hardly anyone knows it exists, and we can make the few who do forget. We can plan any teamwork we might need to do from here. Hide from the court when the etiquette becomes too oppressive—"

"I never find it oppressive," Aziraphale stated brightly. "It is _so_ reassuring to know exactly what one is meant to do and when. To have everything just so. Bless Monsieur for designing such clear rules."

Crowley grimaced and shook his head. Angels. Snobs without even knowing it. "Yes, fine, if you say so. But what do you think of my idea?"

"It's brilliant, my dear." Aziraphale, of course, had a thousand good ideas. He knew all best furniture makers, all the best lamp makers to brighten up the space. He suggested adding cabinets that would open only at their touch. He planned for all the books and fabrics he would store there until his eventual return to London. He even invented a system for storing Crowley's favorite wines, until he, too, decided to move on. 

The ball, now forgotten, had long finished before they emerged, exhausted by their excited planning. Downstairs, Crowley made to turn left, to his rooms. Aziraphale hesitated on the staircase. 

"What is it?" Crowley asked.

"Nothing," Aziraphale had said, smoothing out his silks. "Good night, I suppose."

It took a rather complicated set of cooperative miracles over the next few days to secret the rooms away entirely, but soon, they managed to lock the place off from the rest of the palace. Over the years, they met there, stored items there, and took meetings with one another whenever they had business with the court. They left rather a mark on the place. _Their_ place. 

A creature of settled habits, Aziraphale had always taken London as a home base, but this was a period in which Crowley flitted about the world more than he usually did. However, this little wing, overlooked and lit only by a small garret window, felt almost like home.

* * *

Crowley walked through the empty halls of Versailles. Someone had spiffed up the place. Gone were the pitchforks, dropped by hysterical peasant mobs, which he'd tripped over on his way in. Repaired were the mirrors in the great hall. A master gardener had even come by and done quite a lot of trimming and pruning in the garden.

But the place still looked uninhabited. Crowley couldn't make out what was going on. 

He passed a couple of guards on his way out the front gate.

"Vous!" they yelled at him. "Qu'est que vous faites-la?"

"What year is it?" he asked, halting over the words. He'd always hated speaking this language; it made his sinuses flare. 

The two guards stared at one another. The first one raised an eyebrow to signify, "Lunatic." The other said "Ooh-la," in agreement, especially after looking at Crowley's clothes.

"1888," they answered in pitying unison.

Crowley tensed, forearms twitching as he tried to process this information. He'd been asleep, with only a two-minute lavatory break,[ **2**] for almost a century. By far his most impressive nap in a long career of wholly unnecessary naps.

He needed to get back to London. He needed to see Aziraphale. Aziraphale would know what it was Hell thought he was responsible for, what this 'business in Whitechapel' was, and fill him in on what little he might have missed.

"Thanks very much," he said to the guards. "And now, I'll be out of your hair as soon as you direct me to the nearest place I can rent a horse." He didn't want to—he hated horses—but without access to the private carriage he'd once owned, there was no other option. Or so he thought.

"Where are you headed, monsieur?"

"Paris." Crowley's plan was to buy some wine from his favorite shop, and from there, make his way to London. Aziraphale would appreciate the gift, and they could drink it all in the little backroom in Soho, like always.

"Why don't you take the train?" the guard suggested.

"The what?"

* * *

The last thing Crowley remembered before going to sleep was an epically long lunch in 1793. He and Aziraphale had run into one another in the Place de la Concorde. Aziraphale was there to bless the peasantry, inciting them to rise above the ugliness of the situation and have a care for their fellow men. Crowley had been sent there to incite quite the opposite. 

His side hadn't started the bloody revolution, but Crowley had made a reputation for himself of masterfully exacerbating already bad situations. For his part, Aziraphale had always excelled in sprinkling delicate dots of grace across a dire landscape. Without the dire landscape, Aziraphale would have nothing in which to divinely intervene. And without those interventions, Crowley's dire landscapes would have lacked all texture and interest. 

Once they'd put in a few hours of work, Aziraphale had suggested they lunch at a charming restaurant he'd recently heard about in Versailles. It specialized in duck, he said, and the chef did something unique with pears for dessert. Little more than an hour's ride took them out of the muck and blood of Paris. Crowley never failed to be amazed at how unchanged most people's day to day remained, even those who lived relatively close to world-changing events. 

"It'll be lovely to see the old place again," Aziraphale had said during the carriage ride. "We had _such_ lovely times there, didn't we?"

Crowley didn't recall any uniquely lovely times. He remembered only that he and Aziraphale had lived at court, in the rather close circumstances that Versailles at its peak had demanded of everyone. They had spent more time together than usual in their long relationship, which he'd enjoyed, yes, but nothing of note had happened.

"It won't be the same, though," he said. "That world's all gone now. It in the process of getting its collective head chopped off."

Aziraphale shook his head. "No, it isn't gone. Not quite yet. When the humans indulge in such extreme dramatics as these, they tend to end up overcorrecting very soon afterwards. You're right that that world will likely be over eventually, but today isn't the end. You'll see." 

Lunch had turned into drinks, dinner, and a late-night third course. The food exceeded even Aziraphale's high expectations. Crowley had never felt so full. Neither of them had ever been gotten so drunk, which was saying something, because Crowley had indulged in a fair few benders in his time. 

"What now, my dear?" Aziraphale had burbled on their way out. He took Crowley's arm, and together they wobbled down the quiet main street. 

"I think I'll head off to bed. What about you?" Crowley stammered, tripping over his words just as his feet tripped over cobblestones. His head felt as though it might fall off, but the sensation might have been due to the lingering gory visuals of the morning. When he looked up, the angel was giving him a _look_. Confused, expectant, like a little bird, if birds ever wore silks and gorgeously curled wigs. A look that was much too much, and therefore Crowley hung his head again to escape it. He was too drunk for this. 

"And what do you intend to do in bed?" Aziraphale asked softly. 

"Sleep, of course," Crowley replied, wondering when Aziraphale had become so thick, yet feeling rather thick himself from all the drink.

Aziraphale held his hand to his forehead and looked down the lane, away from Crowley. "I see." He cleared his throat and asked, "You'll get a room in town, I suppose?"

"No, I mean to break into our little room. In the palace. Don't you remember?"

"It wasn't all that long ago," Aziraphale sniffed. "Of course, I remember."

"Do you want to come with?" Crowley asked, feeling eager, though for what, he didn't know. Everything felt muzzy right now, but he had a sense that they were on a precipice of something. Something grand that he couldn't see for all the dizziness.

"Really?" Aziraphale asked, turning his head so fast that he must have pulled something, because he began rubbing it. 

"Yes, I never understood why you don't nap. It's glorious. The most hedonistic of pleasures. By Satan, I think I'll be asleep before my head even hits the pillow," Crowley said, narrowly avoiding falling into a dung heap. 

"You know I don't sleep. I don't need to. But if…"

"Your loss. _I'm_ going to bed. I'll see you when I see you," Crowley slurred. If he didn't sit down soon, he was going to fall down. 

They parted at the head of the road. Aziraphale climbed into a carriage that would take him to Lille, where he was being sent to bless some babies. He promised to tempt a vicar for Crowley while he was in the area. 

It occurred to Crowley, when he woke to use the lavatory some forty years later, that he'd said something wrong, missed a trick somewhere, because Aziraphale had looked spectacularly put out. But in 1837, Crowley was too half-asleep to ponder exactly what he'd done wrong, and by the time Hastur woke him in 1888, he had other things to worry about.

* * *

Fresh off the train from Dover (wonderful things, trains, he'd decided), Crowley waked gingerly through London, stepping over filth and bodies—alive, dead, and more worryingly half-dead—strewn all about the place. He barely recognized the place. Yes, of course, there was St Paul's, smugly situated as usual. Yes, there were the fishmongers on the Thames. But these familiar markers served only to emphasize all the changes that had been wrought over the past century. The population had billowed since he'd last visited, as profusely as the smoke that billowed from factory pipes. The whole city seemed to have suffered a makeover designed by Hell's most in-demand architect.[ **3**]

People kept rushing out from underground holes, as though they were ants, or demons. Out of curiosity, Crowley descended into one of them. However, instead of dens of iniquity, he found simply more trains. Nothing sinister at all. Impressive, really. The Tube hadn't been mentioned in any of his newspapers, but, he supposed, it wasn't necessarily 'news' today.

Crowley had had plenty of time to read on his various trains and on the ferry, so by the time he arrived, he was reasonably primed for what he would find in the London of 1888. However, even with mental preparation, he had to marvel. He hadn't seen density on this scale since the heyday of Rome on gladiator days. 

(He'd also deduced that 'the Whitechapel business' referred to the serial killer who was going about; as usual, this imaginative brand of monstrousness could only have been cooked up by a human. Despite Hastur's orders, Crowley could tell there was little he could add to such spectacular evil; he expected to be commended for the emerging copycats sooner or later.)

Although he appreciated the advancements, not to mention vast proliferation of pubs and the lessened need for horseback riding, Crowley couldn't believe it, any of it. He'd slept for a decade or so in the past and woken to find nothing changed at all. Honestly, full centuries—millennia—had gone by with little to remember. And now, the one time he'd taken a real break, everything had raced ahead without him. He wondered how tempting worked in this brave new world.

Probably just the same, he told himself (and he was right). 

Crowley remembered Aziraphale's house in Soho as being nestled cozily in a row of aristocratic homes on a quiet street. Now, it survived as the only respectable-looking place in the neighborhood. Everything else had been torn down and replaced by much shabbier edifices. Houses of ill-repute spewed men of all shapes and sizes onto the pavement. The place stank of gin, and _not_ the high-end varieties Aziraphale had always been so adept at selecting for him.

The pretty redbrick looked _miraculously_ clean and new, standing out from the squalor all around. However, the shutters had been drawn, and large locks barred every door. In order to blend into the newly commercial—if it could even be called that—aspect of the neighborhood, it seemed that Aziraphale had decided to open a bookshop. The books had always lived there anyway, taking up most of the space in his ever-expanding library. 

Crowley could feel the wards Aziraphale had set all around the house to keep ruffians out. He, however, was able to snap through them in only a minute. It had been almost a thousand years since Aziraphale set up wards against _him_. Ever since entering into their Arrangement, they had given one another the equivalent of a password, to all of their residences, even the ones they didn't technically share. 

Crowley let himself into the shop and took a look around. The collection had grown immeasurably over the years; either the publishing industry had experienced an unprecedented expansion, or Aziraphale's collecting mania had gone completely haywire. Or both. Magic kept all the books dust-free and unyellowed by age; however, it was clear from the overall mustiness (must being a thing that not even miracles can eradicate, much to Aziraphale's constant irritation throughout the millennia) that the angel had not been spending an inordinate amount of time here of late. 

Crowley dug through the letters that lay piled up like an anthill on the desk in the back room. They consisted mainly of solicitations, but also a few invitations on the sort of expensive stationary and exquisite handwriting Aziraphale loved. The address was always the same: a short walk away on Portland Place. 

Ten minutes later, Crowley was letting himself in through the back gate of a handsome limestone building off a fashionable street, the kind of street Aziraphale . Two minutes after that, he strode proudly down the main hall and was greeted by the greatest shock of his life: an angel. _Dancing_. 

More specifically, Aziraphale dancing. Arm in arm with at least fifteen men. Dancing like what Crowley would one day compare to a Ziegfeld girl after too much cotton candy, and kissing someone new at every turn, just as everyone _except_ Aziraphale had done at the Sun King's court.

Crowley watched, immobile, from the doorway. As he watched Aziraphale glancing up and down between his feet and his partners with nervous elation, as though disbelieving that he was _actually_ doing this, Crowley's rusty old excuse for a heart… Well, it didn't swell. That would have been soppy and ridiculous. It was more that he finally noticed much it had already swollen—metaphorically, that is—bit by bit, over six thousand years of fraternizing with this fluttering, frustrating, passive aggressive neurotic. Six thousand years not quite seeing what had been in front of him the entire time. 

The sulfurous pit had not burned as painfully as the emotion that suddenly gathered somewhere in his esophagus. A frustrated possessiveness, a desire to claw the face of anyone who touched what should have been his, had he not remained, until just now, too stupid or too blind or too drunk to even know he'd wanted it. This feeling must have been jealousy, he thought. Jealousy of Aziraphale's new companions—companions who had gotten an angel to _dance_ , for hell's sake. _His_ angel in the arms of all these other men—of his own free will, not as part of any job that Crowley could see…

This had to be jealousy, but, being a new feeling, Crowley could only identify it with an 85% confidence interval. 

He was a demon, he told himself; complicated feelings were not in his wheelhouse. 

(He'd been telling himself that for longer than he could remember.)

Meanwhile, he glowered, unseen, at the assembled company, clenching his fists and thinking up interesting tortures for each and every handsome partner who threaded his arm with Aziraphale's or kissed him on the cheek.

He didn't know which he hated more: these men, or the fact that he knew he wouldn't actually do anything to harm them. Useless excuse for a demon that he was.

* * *

Life as a Principality had become rather dull without Crowley around. Angel duties had lost something of their sheen without that counterbalancing force. Not to mention it got a little lonely without Crowley's uniquely constant face around. 

This long absence of Crowley's had also encouraged the worrying suspicion—always there, but more easily repressed with Crowley around to foment darkness—that neither of their efforts amounted to much. Humanity in the nineteenth century had bustled along with more or less the same balance of good and evil even without Hell's most successful demon stirring them up. 

From about 1800 to 1860, Aziraphale had traveled constantly. He'd looked everywhere for Crowley, even in unsavory locations he normally avoided, like America, and had come up a cropper. He didn't think Crowley had been destroyed. Hell would have sent a less companionable and more professionally driven replacement to annoy him by now, if that had been the case. But he had no idea where the man had _gone_. It wasn't in character for him to spend such long periods of time in, say, Australia, or any other far-flung locale. Europe, and specifically Britain, had always been their preferred territory. 

What irked most was that the man had disappeared without so much as a note. What irked was that Crowley didn't seem to care. What irked Aziraphale most was how much _he_ cared, and had continued to care even after that humiliating dismissal in 1793. Dismissed for a _nap_! Crowley might as well have said he had to go home and wash his hair. 

Aziraphale could take a hint.

And so, after almost seventy years of slowly brewing pique, he finally worked himself into a real fit of it. Aziraphale decided to distract himself. If Crowley didn't need him, then he didn't need Crowley. He'd find new people with whom to fraternize, new activities to pass the time. 

He threw himself into a variety of hobbies. One of them—the study of sleight of hand with John Maskelyne—had led him, in 1870, to the Regency Club (named after its remarkable period silver collection). An acquaintance from class asked him one day to serve as assistant in a presentation he was making to his club of what he had learned thus far. Aziraphale had only meant to attend that single evening, but the chef employed by the club, an Alsatian wooed to England by the promise of high wages and creative leniency, impressed him enough that he accepted invitations to return as a guest on subsequent evenings. 

In February of 1873, the chef, with full support from club members, set out on a challenge to try every single dish featured in Alexandre Dumas's 'Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine. Aziraphale had accepted the offer for full inauguration that very month and had continued as a member ever since. The timing worked out rather well, since Soho was going through something of a downturn at the moment. Aziraphale all but moved into one of the little upstairs bedrooms in the club, where he hoped to stay until the situation improved; he felt certain it would.[ **4**]

The gentlemen of the club varied from innocent younger sons fresh from Cambridge to more experienced men of the world. The only commonality (apart from respectable family names, an Oxbridge education, and an ability to pay the annual dues), was that they were all bachelors. Whenever one of the members passed into the holy state of matrimony, the club threw him a festive 'funeral' for his last night as a member, complete with commemorative photograph posings and an agenda of diverting games in the downstairs steam room.

Aziraphale always made a point of changing scene every ten years or so, in order to keep the humans from noticing anything amiss about him. However, the food had been too good to leave, and with Crowley so mysteriously missing, for so very long, he couldn't bear to leave.

At this point, eighteen years after joining, the members _had_ begun to notice Aziraphale's enviable agelessness. But most explained it away as a by-product of the inherent, radiant goodness that their dear Mr. Fell exuded. Someone so good and pure simply _had_ to be blessed with relatively youthful looks.[ **5**]

(That didn't stop them from trying to sully him at every opportunity. But while they succeeded in deed—Aziraphale made every dedicated effort to keep them happy so that he could continue to enjoy the cuisine and the company—they never succeeded in dampening his light.)

* * *

For years, the Regency Club had kept up a solemn tradition of buying out an entire theatre box each week. The members then recreated the production in amateur fashion, back at the club. If they were lucky, they convinced a few of the actors to join them.

It was one of these excursions that had led to the gavotte's resurgence in Victorian London. A year before Crowley's rude awakening, Aziraphale had gone with the club to see premiere of Gilbert and Sullivan's latest production, _Ruddigore_. He had been delighted to recognize a dance rhythm he had not heard since the heady heyday of the Sun King's court. Aziraphale had always looked on that period of etiquette and omelettes à la Cévenole, of secret suites shared with Crowley, as one of his favorites over the past millennia. 

Although they were all delightful fellows, Aziraphale didn't desperately want to kiss any of them. (In full disclosure, he did make great efforts to kiss them, and more, since they _were_ all such dears, and he enjoyed bringing them—and himself—such divine ecstasy; most importantly, such concessions did much to keep him in good standing with the club and its kitchens). However, there were very many who wanted to kiss _each other_ , and Aziraphale was nothing if not helpful. 

He remembered the gavotte improvements he had long ago suggested—more out of selfish reasons than for the good of the court, which was likely why it hadn't worked the way he'd hoped—and decided to revive them, if only to better remember how endearingly sweaty Crowley had always gotten. When they'd returned to the club for after-theatre drinks, he made the same suggestion he'd made to Monsieur so long ago. His new friends had received with exactly the same amount of relish. 

These days, they hired a quartet and danced the gavotte at least once a week. With months of assiduous practice and earnest, physically helpful teachers, Aziraphale had begun to get the knack of it. 

It was on one of these nights that Crowley let himself into the club.

* * *

"Who goes there?" asked Michael, also known as the Duke of Devonshire.[ **6**] He stood up in great alarm and pointed towards the doorway as melodramatically as Don Giovanni pointed at the ghost of Il Commendatore.

"An intruder! Someone find a sword," puffed Berndt, a charming Austrian count visiting for the London season. He tried to glower but it is always difficult to maintain a threatening expression while kicking one's left leg high into the air and receiving a kiss. (Try it sometime; you'll see.)

"A very dashing intruder," murmured Oscar, from where he sat wedged on a loveseat with the model they had hired for the afternoon's 'drawing from life' class. (The club took pride in their self-improvement educational opportunities.)

"Crowley!" Aziraphale exclaimed. He broke from the chain of the dance and rushed to doorway where Crowley still stood frozen.

Upon losing its most popular participant on the floor, the string quartet paused for a much-needed refreshment break, and to retune.

"Come here, you wicked thing," Aziraphale said before clasping his arms around Crowley. After such a long separation—not long in the immortal scheme of things, but long for _them_ —Aziraphale must have decided Crowley would simply have to endure a hug. Crowley had never been much for embraces, but the possessive rage that had bubbled when he'd first entered began to ebb the longer they held one another, so he allowed it to continue. Within a few seconds, he felt the inextricable flipside of the same emotion, this time a beautiful lightness. 

"How on earth did you find this place, my dear? And…" Aziraphale fingered Crowley's lapel. "Is that my suit? It's a terrible fit on you."

Crowley cleared his throat before he spoke and hoped that he would sound normal, despite the tumult burning him inside. "I stopped by the shop, hope you don't mind. Address was on your desk, and this suit was a damn sight better than what I arrived in, so I threw it on." 

"Of course I don't mind. The door is always open to _you_. But, goodness, where have you _been_?" 

"My word, could it be…" Thomas, also known as the Marquess of Downshire, rose from his seat and bounded over to them. "Is _this_ the famous Crowley?"

Crowley felt himself leaning backwards. They had _never_ let on about themselves, to anyone. This kind of aberration struck Crowley as even more incredible than the Industrial Revolution. "You've told them about me? About _us_?" 

Aziraphale blushed and finally let go of Crowley. He straightened his coat tails and replied, in his primmest manner, "Yes. A little."

"He didn't tell us about your excellent cheekbones," Michael answered with a suggestive wink, "but very nearly everything else. Such boyhood adventures you two shared! We've had quite the wager going, on whether or not you were real, or simply a desperately yearning product of dear Fell's charming imagination."

"Really?" Crowley asked. Now that he was getting an idea of _how_ Aziraphale must have framed the stories, he could calm down enough to be rather touched. Had the angel missed him so much that he'd spent long winter nights spinning tales of their friendship?

If the blush peeking out from under Aziraphale's collar served as any indication, the answer was yes.

"They are prone to wild exaggeration," Aziraphale said, hiding his face behind his wine glass.

"Tell us, did you _really_ bathe together in a secret grotto in Pompeii?" Thomas asked.

"And run a scavenger hunt during Carnevale in Venice?" Michael added.

"And fight over a Belgian princess?" Bernt chimed in. "Aziraphale told us you won that particular struggle, and now that I see you, I can understand it."

"Ye-es," Crowley said, glancing at Aziraphale in surprise. He wondered what the angel had told these fellows, how much he'd obfuscated. For example, he couldn't have told them that the Pompeii incident happened when the place was still a functioning Roman resort town, nor that the fight had been for the Belgian princess's soul, not her hand in marriage.

"Perhaps you can settle another wager for us," Oscar piped up. "Since you appear to be boyhood friends—only a lifetime could account for all of your adventures—you are best equipped to give us a number to attach to Fell's ethereal agelessness."

"Oh, he's an old soul, is, er, Fell," Crowley said stiffly. "Beyond that, it is not my place to say."

"Thank you, old friend," Aziraphale said, now more settled and looking at Crowley as though he couldn't believe he was really here. 

"'Old friend', indeed," Thomas announced with a lewd wink (they were all very big on the suggestive wink in this club, Crowley noted). "We never believed it, and now that I've seen you two together, I believe it even less."

"Hear, hear!" Much tittering erupted at this.

Under the cover of the noise, Crowley whispered, "Is there anywhere we can talk, angel? Alone?" But it had been so long since he'd conversed that it came out louder than he intended.

"What precious pet names you have for one another," Oscar cooed. "'Angel', indeed."

"If you'll excuse us," Aziraphale announced, and really, now that Crowley was looking for it, his quivering determination was a thing of beauty and majesty. He took Crowley's hand and began to lead him out of the main hall. 

"By the by, Fell, while no one here is displeased to see you reunited with your immortal beloved, you mustn't let outsiders know where to find us. It's against the rules, you know. Lord, the riff raff that might descend upon us! It isn't safe," Thomas chastised as they left. He gave Crowley one last, extremely thorough inspection from over the rim of his champagne glass. "Though, on second thought, never let it be said that I cowered in the face of a little danger. You'll bring him back, won't you?"

"What kind of club _is_ this, angel?" Crowley asked in a low voice once they'd gotten out of earshot of the others. "You seem to have fallen in with a bad lot."

"Oh, you misunderstand them. They're all, well, just ordinarily human. But of very good taste. This is the most exclusive club in London, I'll have you know. And secret. No one has ever simply walked in off the street before. Leave it to a demon." His words were chiding, but Aziraphale's tone practically sang admiration and fondness. 

Perhaps Crowley should have slept through a century a long time ago, both to elicit this reaction, and also to clear his own head enough to see it.

Aziraphale led them down a hallway studded with doors. He knocked on a couple and stepped back in alarm when someone inside called, "Occupied!" However, on the third try, no one answered. He opened the door to a small room, richly decorated and furnished with a sturdy bed.

"What is this place?" Crowley asked, turning around while Aziraphale locked them in.

"We keep spaces for members to enjoy a private tête-à-tête." 

Crowley rummaged through the night table drawers and presented Aziraphale with a vial of oil and a moulded phallus. "Highly philosophical conversations going on here, I'm sure."

Aziraphale frowned. "I don't know why you're being so unpleasant about my friends. It isn't as though _you've_ been around. Again, where _were_ you? I've looked everywhere."

"Not everywhere. I've been exactly where you left me."

"What, in France? But I've _been_ to France since then."

"Not to Versailles, you haven't. Not to our suite. I told you I was going to sleep, and I did."

Aziraphale laughed. "You don't mean to tell me you've been napping this entire time!"

Crowley shrugged. "I got up once to use the loo."

Aziraphale paced the room, shaking his head, and talking more to himself than to Crowley. "Unbelievable. The height of decadence, really. You've no idea what it's been like. I even took to… to making up little temptations to throw into my routine… just in case your absence wasn't sanctioned. I didn't want you getting into trouble with your superiors, so keeping them off the scent felt like the right thing to do. I couldn't let them destroy you for slacking off, especially if it turned out you had a good reason for disappearing. But on the other hand, I was tempting people, completely unprompted! A step quite above and beyond our Arrangement. Which _must_ be wrong, mustn't it?"

Aziraphale wrung his hands and pouted piteously, a century of anxious anguish and moral quandary writ all over his delicately expressive face. Looking at him, Crowley felt what he'd rarely felt even as an angel: love. The real thing.

"You chose to do it, so it can't be wrong," he said. "You're an angel. I'm not sure it's actually possible for you to do evil," Crowley said, just as he had the first time they'd met—because in so many ways, today felt like another first, another introduction. Only this time without the sarcasm.

"I do hope so," Aziraphale replied, all over again. "It's been worrying me for a hundred years. You've missed out on quite the century, by the way. My favorite since the heyday of Rome. Such lovely books and glass buildings—"

"I hope whoever lives in it had stones thrown. I mean, someone _must_ have," Crowley joked, not knowing if he should grab Aziraphale and shut him up with his mouth, or let him let it out. 

"It wasn't a _residential_ glass building. Although, I suppose it is now possible to build one," Aziraphale babbled. He made a few aborted attempts to continue in that vein before giving gave up and smiling. "Oh I _am_ glad to see you. The longest it has been before this was only a few years, I think."

"Twelve years, to be exact. During the fourteenth century. I took a nap then, too, just to try to make it go by faster." Crowley moved to sit down on the bed, but Aziraphale grimaced. 

"I wouldn't, if I were you. I can't vouch for the, ahem, _cleanliness_ of the bedding."

Crowley waved at the bedspread to remove any traces of the last occupants. "There you go." He pulled Aziraphale to sit beside him, and kept on holding his wrist. "You learned how to dance."

"I did," Aziraphale agreed, questioning.

"Angels don't dance."

"Angels also don't collect books. Nor do they feed ducks or, oh, any number of interesting things. I decided that dancing shouldn't be any different."

Crowley hadn't thought of it that way before, but it made sense. So much sense that he felt emboldened to take a terrifying leap. Angels danced just as improbably as demons loved. But if Aziraphale could master the former, Crowley could at least attempt the latter.

"Is there anyone in particular with whom you want to dance?" he asked softly, drawing close and putting everything he had into the words.

Aziraphale's eyes went wide as he, infinitely less of an idiot about this sort of thing, understood what Crowley was trying to say. Then he cocked his head to one side, suspicion causing his nose to crunch. "Is this going to be like 1793, where you ask me to come to bed, but mean something entirely dull, and then disappear for a century? Because I'll have you know, demon, I haven't yet forgiven you for that."

"It is not going to be like 1793. I'm painfully sober, for one thing, and for another…" Crowley stood and held his hand out to Aziraphale, who tentatively took it. "Let's have a dance, angel." 

The string quartet had started up again, restored to full gusto after their little break. Crowley and Aziraphale could just hear the music from their room. Aziraphale, as was only fitting, given that he'd been the first to define what had grown between them over time, took the first step. For all that watching the members in the main hall had caused him pain, Crowley now felt glad for the reminder of how this one went. 

Just before the turn, Aziraphale kissed him, and then kissed him again after the turn, because, being the only two people in the dance, Crowley was effectively the next partner.

After four rounds, they gave up dancing all together, and gave themselves over to the kiss. Keeping it up turned out to be no effort at all.

"By the by," Aziraphale said between kisses. "I have a gift for you."

"Better than this?" Crowley asked.

"Different, not better. I found out about it only a month ago. The latest thing from Germany. I thought of you and your hatred of horses, and _had_ to buy it, just in case you resurfaced. It's called a Motorwagon."

**Author's Note:**

> [1] This is actually a compliment, as humans are, in the main, better looking than either angels or demons. Contrary to popular religious texts, demons mostly retained their looks after the fall. However, one of God's punishments involved sending only the very worst barbers and tailors to service the lower realms, and rationing the dental hygiene equipment. As for angels, the lighting in Heaven is of such superior quality—the kind of golden soft focus reserved for beloved yet aging film stars—that their overall homeliness has yet to be uncovered. [return to text]
> 
> [2] He most likely woke on June 30, 1837, either because of the fireworks lit for the party that officially inaugurated the palace as a museum, or because, earlier that day, some slightly tipsy and woefully behind schedule construction workers dropped a marble pillar on the floor above where Crowley slept. [return to text]
> 
> [3] Although MC Escher later came to hold this honour, at this point in history, the title of Hell's "most in-demand architect" went to Piranesi, a draftsman by trade, not an architect, which was why he made such a tortuous and unsound one. [return to text]
> 
> [4] Aziraphale, as was usual in these matters, turned out to be correct. Thanks in part to his subtle suggestions to the city council and real estate developers, by the next century, Soho had evolved yet again into quite the fashionable area. [return to text]
> 
> [5] Oscar Wilde, a frequent guest of the club from 1886-1892, was one of those who noticed Aziraphale's miraculous agelessness. His theory, to which no one else subscribed, but which he found of increasing narrative interest the more he mulled it over it, was that Aziraphale had made some sort of Faustian pact to retain his looks. (Wilde never did find out how close he'd come to the truth.) When, in 1890, he presented Aziraphale with a copy of his latest novel, personally signed and inscribed with "To my divine inspiration", Aziraphale panicked, thinking his secret had been discovered. He soon realized that dear Oscar meant it only in his ordinary, hyperbolic way. Still, the momentary yet crippling fear upset his stomach for the rest of the afternoon. [return to text]
> 
> [6] Club members called each other by their more intimate Christian names, which many felt did not get enough use in the rest of their day to day lives. The royalty amongst them, especially, found the practice a scandalous hoot. [return to text]


End file.
